Pitchfork Music Festival 2011: Day 3 in review

The Pitchfork Music Festival 2011 is a wrap. And here’s our wrap-up of Sunday’s action in Union Park, with reporting once again from your truly (GK), the tireless Bob Gendron (BG) and the ever-vigilant Kevin Pang handling video and editing.

12:10 p.m. Pitchfork spokesman confirms three straight sell-outs this weekend, with 18,000 in attendance each day. Tickets moved slower than usual – in recent years the festival has sold out well in advance – but still the walk-up was strong Friday and Saturday. Different story today: an advance sell-out and lots of anticipation for everyone from Odd Future to TV on the Radio. Also, 13,000 bottles of water were distributed free Saturday to help concertgoers stave off the effects of the heat. Even more are likely to be handed out today as heat becomes oppressive and a major safety concern. (GK)

12:31 p.m. Want a viewing spot in the shade? Better get here early. Fans, prepared for oppressive heat and humidity levels, have already staked out a majority of the prime spots. (BG)

1:14 p.m. The Fresh & Onlys must own a great collection of old seven-inch singles. The San Francisco quartet channels the vintage psychedelic-kissed garage rock of its hometown, circa 1968, in a manner that conjures Love and introduces a slightly heavier bent. Dressed in a Grateful Dead tie-dye and fisherman's cap, front man Tim Cohen sings amid reverb-soaked backdrops that make his wanderlust voice seem as if it emanates through a narrow tunnel. Country accents and surf delay spin the guitar lines, which curl underneath wordless harmonies and tamed feedback. Possessing just enough variation, and refreshingly sans cute devices, the group's tautness indicates that, with more songs in the vein of the persuasive "Fascinated," bigger things await. (BG)

1:31 p.m. Go to sleep. Darkstar is the latest synth-dominant artist to appear at this year's festival, which booked far too many electronically droning purveyors of calm. Judging from this weekend, keyboard sales must be through the roof – almost every act seems to have one. Doodling on modulators and twisting knobs, the trio's atmospheric fare feels ideal for soaking in a bubble bath or zoning out to trippy visuals. As music, however, it falls short. And as performance, it's no more engaging than watching the Grateful Dead struggle through a "Space" sequence on their worst night. Ironically, "Dark Star" happens to be the name of the Dead's most famous exploratory epic. Coincidence? (BG)

1:55 p.m. Featuring nasal vocals, tuneful distortion and volume-dealing effects pedals, Yuck's "The Wall" could pass as an A-side on Dinosaur Jr.'s breakthrough "Green Mind" album. And, akin to mid-period Dinosaur Jr., the group this British band most closely resembles, Yuck also touts a Fender Jazzmaster guitar in its instrumental toolbox. Polite and straightforward, one doesn't get the sense that the English upstarts seek to intentionally replicate or resuscitate alt-rock's bygone era. After all, most of the members weren't even out of diapers when the movement peaked. Still, as nothing more than fine transparencies, the drowsy waltzes ("Suicide Policeman"), well-mannered shoegaze laments and bashful, talking-out-of-the-side-of-your-mouth love declarations ("Georgia") pale next to the originals from which they're cribbed. Who knows: Alternative FM station Q101 may have gone off the air, but if Yuck is any indication, the latest nostalgic revival may already be upon us. Just don't expect it to last very long. (BG)

2:03 p.m. Dinosaur Jr.’s J. Mascis is everywhere today, if only as an inspiration. Kurt Vile appropriates Mascis’ laid-back, ultra-laconic vocal delivery and takes it to new levels of slurry incoherence. And, like Mascis, Vile offers contrast by way of some sharply verbose guitar leads. Each verse sounds like a toss-off just so Vile can get to the guitar part quicker. Plus, he’s in the running for best rock-star hair of the weekend, his wind-aided mane getting an extra boost from an electric fan whirring at his feet. It’s like watching a Winger video from the ‘80s. (GK)

2:11 p.m. Give How to Dress Well an "A" for effort. Execution is another matter. Wearing an oversize white tank top and baggy shorts, geeky leader Tom Krell looks like the underdog that draws applause at a party for possessing the nerve to get up and croon a tender song. His quiet falsetto and skyscraping blue-eyed soul croon border on syrupy, and, scored with extremely delicate passages and lulling tempos, the smooth easy-listening fare follows suit. A full-on string quartet, complete with a conductor, accompanies the singer, whose pretty compositions tread so lightly they wouldn't even scare a noise-shy bird. As such, they're often drowned out by the echoes of Yuck's feedback arriving from an opposite stage. How To Dress Well might work better in an elevator or in the bedroom, via headphones. Here, the preciously weightless Valentines, often indistinguishable from one another, suffer information loss before they even carry for 20 feet. The fest's chill-out mood continues. (BG)

3:10 p.m. "I want it back. I want it back. I want it back," chimes Twin Sister, over and over, until the phrase gets uttered more than 20 times in a row. Disjointed and unmemorable, the group's primarily hushed fare occupies a hallucinogenic, ephemeral dance-pop territory. Live drumming assists in providing the annoyingly coy, exceedingly wispy daydreams a groove, but there's no saving the childlike giddiness and high-pitched waif vocals of Andrea Estella. Eye-catching tresses, though. Her floor-length blue-green hair – is it a wig or real? – is Twin Sister's most distinctive trait. (BG)

3:15 p.m. Cupcakes. Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All (above) brings cupcakes to the party, personally delivering them to the Between Friends advocacy group’s kiosk, where literature about violence against women and gays is being distributed as a counterpoint to some of the Los Angeles hip-hop collective’s more explicit lyrics. Then the group opens its set with Bob Marley’s “One Love” and Black Eyed Peas’ “Where is the Love,” which gets the requisite laughs. Humor, snacks – these are good counters to being a controversy magnet. Odd Future quickly returns to form, turning on the hate for everyone and everything, sometimes even themselves. Musically, it’s kind of a dud – these are more chants than actual songs. But they’re enough to rev up the rather large crowd that gathers in the mid-afternoon heat. The fans are in fist-pumping mode, and group leader Tyler the Creator, sporting a tie-dyed T-shirt with a peace sign (What? More irony?), leaves his crutches behind and – leg cast and all – dives into the crowd. Other Odd Future members follow suit. It all ends in a hail of profane chants directed at school, property and people in general – these are equal opportunity haters, if nothing else, and major wind-up artists. The more upset skeptics become, the louder and more extreme Odd Future becomes. Thousands thrust middle digits in the air, shout along, then disperse in orderly fashion as Odd Future leaves the stage. By then the cupcakes are all gone.

4:09 p.m. After a 20-minute delay/soundcheck, Shabazz Palaces (above) integrate abstract free-jazz vibes, African percussion, defiant lyrical phrases and disorienting hip-hop progressions into an impressively cerebral whole that qualifies as one of the weekend's most visceral, futuristic performances. Led by former Digable Planets MC Ishmael Butler, the Seattle rap duo experiments on multiple levels; it’s more about music that seeps into the subconscious rather than settling for immediate payoff. Extending visionary outer-space motifs set in motion for black music decades ago by Sun Ra and his Arkestra, Shabazz Palaces cast its collective eyes toward similar outré eccentricities but don't forget the importance of the song. There's a consistent flow to the challenging cross-continental aural maneuvers, weaved together with hand drums, maracas, wobbly voices, cut-and-pasted rhymes and funky surprises. Straying from the obvious, the dizzying concoction defies conventional rules of time and space – disorienting in all the best possible ways. (BG)

4:33 p.m. Will the real Ariel Pink (below) please stand up? Coated in processing and reverb, it's impossible to recognize the true tenor of the junkyard pop tunesmith's voice. And still, his collective's California-baked hooks and gauzy fragments express a fondness for Spirit, mid-1970s Frank Zappa, Zombies and acid-addled Beatles. Pulling the spare parts and bizarre fragments from such material is Pink's specialty. He and his mates in Haunted Graffiti don't place value on perfection, choosing to sail on a free-spirited wind that, blow as it may, favors anything-goes looseness and rollicking fun. Pink mutters introverted banter between songs, the transmissions crackling with static and CB fuzz. Think of him as the antithesis of Auto-Tune. Despite some sloppiness – drop-outs, dips and crevasses regularly appear – the fuzzed-out music mates with the skin-frying rays of the overhead sun to make it appear as if everything and everyone is unavoidably subject to distortion. (BG)

5:01 p.m. Will Weisenfeld, the man behind Baths, stops mid-sequence. He confesses that he’s made a mistake. The interruption is an aberration in an electronic set that attracts an overflow crowd and establishes an enjoyable balance between human-created pop and machine-manufactured chill-wave. Unlike several of his contemporaries on the bill, Baths takes precautions to inflate his beats with muscle and contrasts relaxed lines against a miasma of sputtering samples and turntable scratches. Seen controlling the boards and knobs of various gadgets, he's a technician, pulling both arms away from the gear as soon he's satisfied with the program with the sudden rapidness of someone who just burned their hands on a stove. (BG)

5:30 p.m. Everyone else seems to age, but not Superchunk. The veteran indie-rockers still pounce on songs like freckled-faced kids, and their enthusiasm is like a free shot of adrenaline in the heat. Who’s more fun to watch? Jon Wurster with his hyper-speed drum fills? Bassist Laura Ballance with her pogoing harmony vocals? Mac McCaughan and Jim Wilbur with their jousting guitars? They bridge the distant past (“Slack MF”) with the present (“Digging for Something”) with no loss in quality or urgency. (GK)

5:59 p.m. A circle pit forms in front of the stage as Kylesa (above) cooks a Southern stew of sludge metal, swampy boogie and cosmic hard rock. Finally, a band whose music leaves a thick, mud-caked footprint. No niceties. No fear. No irony. No soft-soled treading. Just fat-toned Orange amplifiers, two drummers and a third bass drum for extra low-end punch. Rumbling like a herd of wildebeests, the Georgia crew isn't out to crush or smash. Instead, the rotor-chopping riffs, groaning wah-wah solos and guttural traded-off vocals shake limbs and warp minds. To this extent, a frequency oscillator doubles as a theremin, and the molten power chords pass rough yawning, spacious echo chambers that prevent the material from collapsing under its own weight. Kylesa means business and attacks with a purpose that doesn't give fans the option of viewing its double-barreled craft as incidental sonic wallpaper. Another helping, please. (BG)

6:15 p.m. Have to echo Bob Gendron’s comments above and put in a plea for more heavy music at Pitchfork to balance the large percentage of pleasantness that dominated the first two days of this year’s festival. There’s so much great music being made in the underground metal scene, not only in Chicago (Nachtmystium, Yakuza, Minsk, Pelican, etc.) but nationwide that it deserves a greater slice of the bookings. Kylesa’s wow factor is the double-drummer alignment; hearing those dueling kick drums drive the music suggests a stampeding herd of very fast, very large, very ticked off carnivores. (GK)

6:42 p.m. Bradford Cox holds his guitar up against a giant cooling fan, hoping to capture additional vibrations. The Deerhunter leader and his colleagues step into play the role that normally falls to Sonic Youth, treating their four- and six-stringed instruments as unexplored pieces of wood, wire and metal. Diversity, long a hallmark of the quartet's core, remains but seldom is it funneled through such vibration-rich, feedback-friendly flurries. Deerhunter's ambient flights, twangy rave-ups and jagged strolls cascade like waterfalls, the band spinning it all in a kaleidoscopic centrifuge that threatens to blow a fuse. The momentum peaks as the group puts the throttle down on an elongated German art-rock groove that throws passing glances to piercing no-wave and street-tough post-punk before segueing into an excellent Patti Smith cover. "Horses!" yelps Cox, bringing Deerhunter's intersection of detached pop cool and ragged, beat-poet frenzy full circle. (BG)

7:07 p.m. Tori Y Moi’s voice is smooth, melancholy, a lonely bedroom sound that spirals off into infinity. Wordless, high, sing-songy vocals double as hooks. It’s so breezy, it could be called wind-chime R&B. His band is solid, nothing special, but the bass assumes a foreground role, and the fans are bobbing along. Odd Future’s Tyler the Creator is at the side of the stage nodding along too. Who knew? (GK)

7:50 p.m. There’s something about a band that can deliver a knockout performance that sweeps the park just when dusk cools off a long, hot day of music. Cut Copy is in the prime slot and the Australian quartet delivers an exultant performance. Originally a Dan Whitford solo project, Cut Copy has evolved into a formidable band that straddles the rave and rock cultures. With a festive, occasionally blinding light show, and beats that run the gamut from Caribbean syncopations to Berlin techno, Cut Copy knows how to orchestrate a glow-stick celebration. But it also boasts a strong sense of songcraft and melody. Based on this performance, a Phoenix-like breakthrough seems to be in their future. (GK)

8:13 p.m. Is it live or is it artificial? Should there be a division between the two forms? These questions are posed by HEALTH's chaotic ruckus, barely controlled mayhem that prizes dissonant commotion and attention-deficit-disorder paradigm shifts. Grimy and provocative, the spastic fusion of noise rock, corrosive disco and anthemic rave suggests chainsaws cutting through wrought-iron fences, blaring emergency sirens, subterranean jungle bass lines, busy telephone signals, malfunctioning Speak 'N Spell games, sparking power transformers. Band members jump, rearing their torsos back in mid-air and occasionally play on their knees. Hectic, for certain, and at the end of a hot day, it would usually be too much. But coming at the close of a weekend during which mellowness dominates, the feverish energy arrives as a fun respite. (BG)

9:27 p.m. TV on the Radio (above) brings the sixth annual festival to a close with a set that starts in an imaginary church – fast soul handclaps, and falsetto gospel vocals animated by call-and-response patterns. The sextet explores a few ballads from its latest album, “Nine Types of Light,” but even here drummer Jaleel Bunton lays down subtly funky groove. “Will Do” manages to be both sensual and danceable, a slow-swaying seduction rolling out of the speakers. Then TVOTR morphs again, this time into a spikier beast, with a rampaging “Wolf Like Me” and a furious “Satellite.” It’s a great band that can be anything it wants as the moment demands. (GK)